Ever since the VHS boom of the 80s came to an end, action movie fans have been forced to sit through glossy, bloodless, PG-13 fare designed to play not to those that get their kicks from bullets, blood, and boobs, but instead to the broadest, most easily-offended audiences possible. Maybe it had something to do with all of the big action stars stepping back from the game at once, or maybe it had something to do with theaters getting more serious about not letting kids into R-rated movies, but action movies eventually went from being thoughtless, testosterone-soaked spectacles of destruction to being slick, music video-looking things that survived on casting pretty faces as their leads. But no more! Action King Arnold Schwarzenegger is done with his political career and has recently returned to making shoot ‘em ups, and his latest film, Sabotage, probably resembles classic 80s action more than anything else we’ve seen in years.
What that means is that Sabotage is grossly over-violent, tone deaf, politically incorrect, downright sleazy, and has been given a blood-splattering, boob-baring, Hard R rating by those geeks over at the MPAA. The film is directed by cop movie veteran David Ayer (End of Watch), and it stars Schwarzenegger as the leader of a team of specially trained DEA agents who infiltrate and take down the world’s most dangerous drug cartels. If that doesn’t sound thrilling enough already, it also turns out that Schwarzenegger’s crew of hard-partying, quick-to-shoot agents are dirty, and after the team botches an operation where the $10 million they steal from a particularly nasty cartel mysteriously disappears, eventually they start to get picked off one by one. Who took the money? Who’s perpetrating the murders? Maybe it doesn’t matter much, because all of the characters in this movie are awful people, and most of the intrigue seems to be built on the question of how progressively gruesome each of their deaths can get.
Actually, Schwarzenegger’s character and his team are such crude, despicable, unlikable meatheads, that the first half of the film or so can be something of a chore to get through. Sure, there are a handful of decent action scenes, and a smattering of super bloody kills, but there are also a lot of scenes where you’re forced to just hang out with these idiots as they get hammered on cheap beer and engage in rock dumb locker room banter—and it sucks. Thankfully though, Olivia Williams eventually gets introduced as a homicide detective assigned to investigate their murders, and not only is her American accent amazing, but her character also provides us with a relatable figure to engage the story through. It doesn’t hurt that the mysteries deepen and start to get vaguely interesting around this point as well, or that the action ramps up its intensity and brutality during the climax. The first half of Sabotage is a little rough to get through, but if you manage to stick around, it actually doesn’t end up being all that bad.
